‘Highlander’ Reboot Lands ‘John Wick’ Director Chad Stahelski

It’s cool. David Leitch can have Deadpool 2. His John Wick co-director Chad Stahelski has his own thing going on: Highlander.

For a while, the Highlander reboot was one of those things that might as well have been a Gretchen Wieners meme: “Stop trying to make Highlander happen. It’s not going to happen.” But now, according to THR, Stahelski is on board to direct the film, while the search for a new group of writers has begun to work with the filmmaker.

He told the trade:

I’ve been a huge fan of the original property since I saw it in high school. Such great themes of immortality, love, and identity are all wrapped up in such colorful mythology. I can’t think of a better property that gives the opportunity to create interesting characters, mythic themes and action set pieces.

Image via Lionsgate

A reboot of the 1986 fantasy film has been in the works since 2008, but it’s continuously hit bumps in the road. Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg was supposed to have tackled the script at one point, while Justin Lin and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo were both attached to direct before both dropped out. The latter cited creative differences as the reason. Then there was talk of Ryan Reynolds and Tom Cruise to star at various points, but it seems like the creative team is trying to rework the treatment again to better accommodate the man in the director’s chair.

In the original, Christopher Lambert played an immortal swordsman dubbed Highlander. Trained by Sean Connery’s Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, he must face another immortal warrior, Clancy Brown’s Victor Kruger in modern-day New York City. Cruise was said to be in talks to play Connery’s role, while Reynolds was in talks for Highlander way back when.

Neal H. Moritz and Peter Davis, who’ve been attached as producers for some time, are still on board. Watch the trailer for the original Highlander film below:

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